OFFICIAL VISIT TO YEDO

During the later months of 1862 a good deal of correspondence went forward about the ItÔ Gumpei (murderer of the sentry and of the corporal) affair and the Richardson murder, and Colonel Neale held various conferences with the ShÔgun's ministers. The diplomatic history of these proceedings has been already recounted by Sir Francis Adams, and as for the most part I knew little of what was going on, it need not be repeated here. The meeting-place for the more important discussions was Yedo, whither the Colonel used to proceed with his escort and the larger portion of the Legation staff. Some went by a gunboat, others rode up to the capital along the TÔkaidÔ. At that period and for several years after, the privilege of visiting Yedo was by Treaty restricted to the foreign diplomatic representatives, and non-official foreigners could not cross the RokugÔ ferry, half way between Kanagawa and Yedo, except as the invited guest of one of the legations. And now all the foreign ministers had transferred their residences to Yokohama in consequence of the danger which menaced them at Yedo. We younger members, therefore, appreciated highly our opportunities, and it was with intense delight that I found myself ordered to accompany the chief early in December on one of his periodical expeditions thither. We started on horseback about one o'clock in the afternoon in solemn procession, the party consisting of Colonel Neale, A von Siebold, Russell Robertson, and myself, with Lieutenant Applin commanding the mounted escort. It was a miserably cold day, but R. and I combated the temperature by dropping behind to visit Mr. Brown on our way through Kanagawa, and then galloping on after the others. They had evidently been going at a foot's pace during the interval. At Kawasaki we encountered an obstruction in the shape of an obstinate head ferryman, who did not recognize the British ChargÉ d'Affaires, and refused to pass us over. The men on guard at the watch-house commanding the ferry, on seeing some of us approach to demand their assistance, ran away. The Colonel fumed with wrath, but fortunately at this moment there arrived in breathless haste a mounted officer from Kanagawa, who had followed us of his own accord on hearing that the English ChargÉ d'Affaires had passed without a Japanese escort. So the ferryman collected his men, and we got over without further trouble. A couple of miles beyond the river we came to the well-known gardens called MmÉ Yashiki, the plum-orchard, where we were waited on by some very pretty girls. Everybody who travelled along the TÔkaidÔ in those days, who had any respect for himself, used to stop here, in season or out of season, to drink a cup of straw-coloured tea, smoke a pipe and chaff the waiting-maids. Fish cooked in various ways and warm sakÉ (rice beer) were also procurable, and red-faced native gentlemen might often be seen folding themselves up into their palanquins after a mild daylight debauch. Europeans usually brought picnic baskets and lunched there, but even if they started late were glad of any excuse for turning in to this charmingly picturesque tea-garden. Everyone now-a-days is familiar with the Japanese plum-tree as it is represented in the myriad works of art of these ingenious people, but you must see the thing itself to understand what a joyful surprise it is to enter the black-paled enclosure crowded with the oddly angular trees, utterly leafless but covered with delicate pink or white blossoms which emit a faint fragrance, and cover the ground with the snow of their fallen petals. It is early in February that they are in their glory, on a calm day when the sun shines with its usual brilliance at that season, while in every shady corner you may find the ground frozen as hard as a stone. But to my taste the plum-blossom looks better on a cloudy day against a dull background of cryptomeria when you sit by a warm fire and gaze on it out of window. In December, however, only the swelling buds are to be seen stretching along the slender shoots of last spring. We proceeded on our way without any special incident until we reached the notorious suburb of Shinagawa, half consisting of houses, or rather palaces, of ill-fame, where a drunken fellow who stood in the middle of the road and shouted at us got a fall from one of the troopers, and so we reached the Legation about sunset. The rest of the staff and the infantry guard, who had come by sea, landed about an hour later.

The building occupied as the legation was part of a Buddhist temple, TÔ-zen-ji, behind which lay a large cemetery. But our part of it had never been devoted to purposes of worship. Every large temple in Japan has attached to it a suite of what we might call state apartments, which are used only on ceremonial occasions once or twice in the year, but from time immemorial it has been the custom to accommodate foreign embassies in these buildings. A suitable residence for a foreign representative could not otherwise have been found in Yedo. As a general rule every Japanese, with the exception of the working classes, lives in his own house, instead of renting it as do most residents in an European capital. The only purely secular buildings large enough to lodge the British Minister and his staff were the Yashiki or "hotels" of DaimiÔs, but the idea of expropriating one of these nobles in order to accommodate a foreign official was probably never mooted. There remained, therefore, only the "state apartments" of some large monastery as a temporary residence until a site could be obtained and the necessary buildings constructed. Consequently there was no ground for the reproach which one writer at least has urged against the foreign ministers, that by turning sacred edifices into dwelling-houses they had insulted the religious feelings of the Japanese people. In the early years of our intercourse with Japan it is true that we were regarded as unwelcome "intruders," but in native opinion we "polluted" the temples by our presence no more than we should have "polluted" any other residence that might have been assigned to us. TÔ-zen-ji lay in the suburb of Takanawa fronting the seashore, and was therefore conveniently situated for communication with our ships, the smallest of which could anchor just inside the forts, at a distance of perhaps a mile and a half. Owing, however, to the shallowness of the bay, boats were unable to get up to the landing place at low tide, and the assistance which could have been rendered by a gunboat in the event of a sudden attack, such as had been experienced in 1861, was absolutely nil. There remained, however, the comfort derived from knowing that a refuge lay at no great distance, and no doubt the appearance of a gunboat within the line of forts that had been built to keep out foreign fleets produced a considerable moral effect upon the general population, though desperadoes of the sort that assaulted the guard in July 1861 would certainly have been no whit deterred by any number of threatening men-of-war which could not reach them. Behind the house there was a small ornamental garden with an artificial pond for gold fish, on the opposite side of which rose a hill covered with pine-trees. A good way off from the quarters of the minister, and at the back of the cemetery belonging to the temple, there was a small house named JÔ-tÔ-an, which was occupied by the senior chancery assistant. A tall bamboo fence cut us off entirely from this part of the grounds, and joined the house at either end. The rooms were not spacious, and very little attempt had been made to convert them into comfortable apartments. I think there was an iron stove or two in the principal rooms, but elsewhere the only means of warming was a Japanese brasier piled up with red hot charcoal, the exhalations from which were very disagreeable to a novice. The native who wraps himself up in thick wadded clothes and squats on the floor has no difficulty in keeping himself warm with the aid of this arrangement, over which he holds the tips of his fingers. His legs being crumpled up under him, the superficies he presents to the cold air is much less than it would be if he sat in a chair with outstretched limbs in European fashion. To protect himself against draughts he has a screen standing behind him, and squats on a warm cushion stuffed with silk wool. These arrangements enable him even in winter to sit with the window open, so long as it has a southern aspect, and foreigners who adopt the same system have made shift to get on. But if you are going to live in Japan in European style, you must, in order to be moderately warm during the winter months, replace the paper of the outer wooden slides with glass, stop up the openwork above the grooves in which the slides work that divide the rooms, and either build a fireplace or put up an American stove. But even all this will not make you thoroughly comfortable. Underneath you there are thick straw mats laid upon thin and badly jointed boarding, through which the cutting north-west wind rises all over the floor, while the keen draughts pierce through between the uprights and the shrunken lath-and-plaster walls. The unsuitability of such a building as a residence for the minister and his staff had been perceived from the outset, and long negotiations, having for their object the erection of a permanent legation, had by this time resulted in the assignment of an excellent site, on which a complete series of buildings was being constructed from English designs, but at the expense of the ShÔgun's government. Other sites in the immediate vicinity had been given to the French, Dutch and Americans for the same purpose. All these were carved out of what had been once a favourite pleasure resort of the people of Yedo, whither in the spring all classes flocked to picnic under the blossoms of the cherry-trees in sight of the blue waters of the bay. Gotenyama was indeed a famous spot in the history of the ShÔgunate. In its early days the head of the State was wont to go forth thither to meet the great daimiÔs on their annual entry into Yedo, until IyÉmitsu, the third of the line, to mark still more strongly the supremacy to which he felt he could safely lay claim, resolved that henceforward he would receive them in his castle, just like the rest of his vassals. From that time the gardens had been dedicated to the public use. But already before the foreign diplomats took up their abode in Yedo, Gotenyama had been partially diverted from its original purpose, and vast masses of earth had been carried off to form part of the line of forts from Shinagawa to the other side of the junk channel that leads into the river. The British minister's residence, a large two-storied house, which from a distance seemed to be two, stood on an eminence fronting the sea. Magnificent timbers had been employed in its construction, and the rooms were of palatial dimensions. The floors were lacquered, and the walls covered with a tastefully designed Japanese paper. Behind and below it a bungalow had been erected for the Japanese secretary, and a site had been chosen for a second, destined for the assistants and students. On the southern side of the compound was an immense range of stables containing stalls for 40 horses, and on the second storey quarters for a portion of the European guard. Some slight progress had been made with the buildings for the French and Dutch legations. But we knew that the people disliked our presence there. The official and military class objected to the foreigner being permitted to occupy such a commanding position overlooking the rear of the forts, and the populace resented the conversion of their former pleasure-ground into a home for the "outer barbarians." To press on the completion of the houses and to take possession was rightly considered an important matter of policy. A deep trench was being dug round the enclosure, and a lofty wooden palisade was built on the inner margin, which, it was expected, would afford sufficient protection against a repetition of such attacks as that of the 5th July 1861, and the British ensign was to be hoisted again in Yedo as soon as the buildings should be ready for occupation. We all looked forward to that event with the liveliest feelings of anticipation, and for myself I anxiously expected its arrival because Yokohama was a hybrid sort of town, that by no means fulfilled my expectations, and I hoped before long to become a resident of the famous city to which I had looked with longing eyes from the other side of Europe.

We rode daily in the environs of Yedo, to the pretty tea-house at Oji, which is depicted with such bright colours in Laurence Oliphant's book, to the pond of JiÛ-ni-sÔ on the road to KÔ-shiÛ, to the other pond called Senzoku half way to Mariko, and to the temple of FudÔ at Meguro, where the pretty damsels at the tea-houses formed more than half the attraction. Within the city we made excursions to the temple of Kwannon at Asakusa, then and for long afterwards the principal sight of interest to the foreign visitor, to Atagoyama, where other pretty damsels served a decoction of salted cherry-blossoms, and to the temple of Kanda MiÔjin for the view over the city. But the gorgeous mausoleums of the ShÔguns at Shiba and Uyeno were closed to the foreigner, and remained so up to the revolution of 1868. We were allowed in riding back from Asakusa to catch a passing glimpse of the lotus pond Shinobazu-no-ikÉ, which is now surrounded by a racecourse after the European manner, but the FukiagÉ Park, since known as the Mikado's garden, and the short cut through the castle from the Sakurada Gate to the Wadagura Gate of the inner circle were shut to us in common with the Japanese public. A large portion of the city in the immediate neighbourhood of the castle, and large areas in every quarter were occupied by the Yashiki of DaimiÔs and Hatamotos, of which little could be seen but long two-storied rows of stern barrack-buildings surrounding the residence of the owner. From the top of Atagoyama alone was it possible to get a view of the interior of such enclosures, and it must be admitted that the knowledge thus gained completely upset the idea that the nobles lived in palaces. Irregular masses of low brown roofs and black weather-boarded walls alone were visible. The use of telescopes was strictly forbidden on Atagoyama, lest the people should pry into the domestic doings of their masters. Wherever we went a band of mounted guards surrounded us, ostensibly for our protection, but also for the purpose of preventing free communication with the people. These men belonged to a force raised by the ShÔgun's ministers from the younger sons of the hatamotos, and numbered 1000 or 1200. They wore the customary pair of swords (i.e. a long and short sabre thrust through the belt on the left side), a round flat hat woven from the tendrils of the wistaria, for the rank and file, and a mound-shaped lacquered wooden hat for the officers, a mantle or haori, and the wide petticoat-shaped trousers called hakama. Between them and the members of the foreign legations there existed no tie of any kind, for they were changed every fifteen days just like so many policemen, and mounted guard indifferently at all the legations. It was not until 1867 that I managed to break through this rule and get a special body of men attached to myself. Small guardhouses were dotted about the legation grounds for their accommodation. As soon as it became known that a foreigner was about to go out on foot or on horseback, half-a-dozen were detailed to follow him at all hazards. It was impossible to escape their vigilance. They were to prevent our speaking to any person above the rank of a common citizen or to enter a private house. On one occasion two members of our legation managed a visit to the father of a young samurai named KotarÔ, who lived with us to study English. The fact was reported, and when the visitors went a second time they found the occupants of the house had removed to another part of the city. We were allowed to sit down in shops, and even to bargain for articles that took our fancy; but two kind of purchases were strictly prohibited, maps and the official list of daimiÔs and government officials. Anything we bought had to be sent afterwards to the legation, and delivered to the officials of the foreign department who lived within our gates, and payment was made to them. On one occasion the Prussian representative, Herr Max von Brandt, made a determined stand against this prohibition. Entering the shop of the bookseller Okada-ya in Shimmei Maye, where we foreigners were in the habit of buying books, he inquired for the List of DaimiÔs. The bookseller replied that he had it not in stock. Herr von Brandt knew that he had, and announced his intention of remaining there until he was furnished with what he required. He sent a member of his party home to the Legation to bring out the materials for luncheon, and sat determinedly down in the shop. The guards were at their wits' end. At last they dispatched a messenger to the castle to represent the impossibility of inducing him to give way, and at last towards evening there came an order to say that for this once the foreigner was to have the book. So the day was won. As a matter of fact, however, it was never necessary to proceed to this extremity, as we could easily procure what we wanted in the way of maps and printed books through our Japanese teachers. MSS. were always a difficulty. As nothing could be published without permission, any book that touched upon governmental matters had from of old to be circulated in MS. Amongst such works were the so-called "Hundred Laws of IyÉyasu," which were supposed to embody the constitution of the Japanese government. The book contains references to offices of state that were instituted after his time, and the utmost that can be alleged in its favour is that it perhaps contains a few maxims from his lips and certain rules as to the appointment of high political functionaries that were observed in actual practice. There was another book, of undoubted authenticity, containing a vast mass of administrative regulations, of which I never obtained a copy until after the revolution, when it was no longer of practical value. That MS. is now in the British Museum. Another expedient for eluding the censorate was printing forbidden books with moveable types. It was frequently resorted to during the last years of the ShÔgunate and at the beginning of the new rule of the Mikado, especially for narratives of political events during that period and for one or two important treatises on politics. Shimmei Maye was one of our favourite resorts in those days; here were to be had cheap swords, porcelain, coloured prints, picture-books and novels. I much regret that I did not then begin to collect, when the blocks were comparatively fresh; a complete set of Hokusai's Mangwa, in perfect condition, could be had for a couple of dollars, and his Hundred Views of Fuji for about a couple of shillings. But I had little spare cash for such luxuries, and all my money went in necessaries.

Two days after our arrival in Yedo we paid a visit to the GorÔjiÛ, or ShÔgun's Council. The word means "August Elders." It was somewhat infra dig. for a foreign representative to use the prefix go in speaking of them, but the phrase had been caught up from the Japanese who surrounded the minister, and for a long time I believe it was thought that go meant five. I unveiled the mistake, and when I afterwards became interpreter to the Legation we adopted the practice of giving them the bare rÔjiÛ, except in addressing them direct, when etiquette demanded the honorific. I was unprovided with anything in the shape of uniform, and had to borrow a gold-laced forage cap from Applin. We came afterwards to look with much contempt on these gauds, and to speak derisively of "brass caps," but in 1862 I was young enough to take considerable pride in a distinctive mark of rank, and after this occasion lost no time in buying a bit of broad gold lace to wear like my fellow officers. It was an imposing procession, consisting as it did of half-a-dozen "brass caps," the military train escort of twelve men under their gorgeous lieutenant, and a flock of about forty Japanese guards hovering about us before, behind, and on either flank. In these days a foreign representative may often be detected approaching the office of the minister for foreign affairs without any suite, and in the humble jinrikisha drawn by one scantily clad coolie. The interview took place in a long room in the house of one of the rÔjiÛ. A row of small black-lacquered tables extended down each side, and chairs were set for the Japanese as well as the foreigners. On each table stood an earthen brasier, a black-lacquered smoking-stand, with brass fire-pot and ash-pit, and two long pipes, with a supply of finely cut tobacco in a neat black box. Three of the ministers sat on the right side of the room, and with them an ometsukÉ, whose title was explained to me to mean spy. I suppose "censor" or "reporter" would be nearer. Below them sat eight gai-koku bu-giÔ, or commissioners for foreign affairs. We used to call them governors of foreign affairs, probably because the governor of Kanagawa was also a bu-giÔ. In the centre of the room sat a "governor" on a stool, while two interpreters (one of whom was Moriyama TakichirÔ) squatted on the floor. The four higher Japanese officers alone were provided with tables and chairs, the "governors" sitting on square stools, with their hands in the plackets of their trousers. After some complimentary talk about the weather and health, which are de rigueur in Japan, a double row of attendants in light blue hempen robes (we used to term the upper part "wings") came in bearing aloft black lacquer boxes full of slices of sponge cake and yÔkan (a sweetened bean paste), and afterwards oranges and persimmons. Then tea was served in two manners, simply infused, and also the powdered leaf mixed up with hot water and frothed. The conversation proceeded at a very slow pace, as it had to be transmitted through two interpreters, ours who spoke Dutch and English, and theirs who spoke Japanese and Dutch. This gave rise to misunderstandings, and the Japanese ministers seemed every now and then to profit by this double obstruction to answer very much from the purpose, so that Colonel Neale's observations had to be repeated all over again, interpreted and re-interpreted. Often the ministers would seem at a loss, whereupon one of the "governors" would leave his stool and glide up to whisper something in his ear. This proceeding reminded one of the flappers in Laputa. The principal topic was the murder of the sentry and corporal at TÔ-zen-ji which has already been related. To all the demands made by Colonel Neale, in accordance with the instructions he had received from Lord Russell, the rÔjiÛ objected, and when he informed them that the British Government required the payment of £10,000 in gold as an indemnity to the families of the two murdered men, they opened their eyes very wide indeed. They offered $3000. Colonel Neale at last lost all patience, which no doubt was what they were aiming at. He gave them a piece of his mind in pretty strong language, and the interview came to an end, after, I suppose, a sitting of about three hours length, without anything having been settled. I forget whether it was on this occasion that Siebold literally translated the epithet "son of a gun" by teppÔ no musuko; the adjective that preceded it he did not attempt to translate, as it has not even a literal equivalent in Japanese. The way in which the ministers contradicted themselves from time to time was something wonderful, and the application of the good unmistakeable Anglo-Saxon word for him who "says the thing that is not," was almost venial.

Of course Colonel Neale did not omit to complain of the ferryman and the guards at Kawasaki, who had run away instead of putting us over the river, and Eusden in translating used the words zij sloopen alle weg, which excited my risible muscles kept at too great a stretch through these tedious hours. I whispered to my neighbour, "they all sloped away"; a terrible frown from the old gentleman rebuked my indecorous behaviour, and I was afterwards informed that I should never be allowed thenceforth to be present on one of these solemn occasions. That was a relief to me, but I confess I ought to have felt more contrite than I did. At the age of nineteen and a half a boy is still a boy, but I ought to have manifested more respect for my elders.

Early in February we received news that the legation buildings in Gotenyama had been destroyed by fire on the night of the 1st. Many years afterwards I learnt on the best possible authority that the incendiaries were chiefly ChÔshiÛ men belonging to the anti-foreign party; three at least afterwards rose to high position in the state. These were Count ItÔ, Minister President of State (1886); Count InouyÉ Kaoru; who the third was I forget. It need scarcely be said that they long ago abandoned their views of the necessity of putting an end to the intercourse of their country with the outside world, and they are now the leaders of the movement in favour of the introduction into Japan of whatever western institutions are adapted to the wants and wishes of the people.

Willis and I were now living together in a wing of the legation house at No. 20 on the Bund, and a young Japanese samurai named Kobayashi KotarÔ messed with us. He had been placed under Willis' charge by the Japanese Government in order to acquire the English language, and was a nice boy, though perhaps not endowed with more than average abilities. He disappeared to his home about the time that the ultimatum of the British Government was presented to the Council of the Tycoon in the spring of 1863, and we never heard of him again. I had the teacher Takaoka KanamÉ now all to myself, and was beginning to read Japanese documents. Across the hills south of the settlement lived a priest who knew something of the Sanskrit alphabet as used in Japan, and I used to go once or twice a week to him for instruction, but these studies were interrupted by the rumours of war that began soon to prevail; and the lessons from the American missionary, Mr. Brown, also came to an end, as I was now able to get on alone.